Jody Hill’s OBSERVE AND REPORT (2009) was maybe a little ahead of its time. Or at least ahead of me. I guess I didn’t review it, but I remember being a little disappointed at the time, thinking it had kind of a fake darkness to it. I thought it was supposed to be a TAXI DRIVER type portrait of a mall security guard, and it seemed kind of forced to me.

Watching it now, though, it obviously got alot of shit right about a certain type of person that it really was important to be keeping an eye on. In fact it was right enough that now my issue is that maybe it’s treating the subject matter a little too lightly.

Seth Rogen stars as Ronnie Barnhardt, the jovial but completely deluded head of security at Forest Ridge Mall who sees an opportunity for glory when a serial flasher (Randy Gambill, production designer of Hill’s debut THE FOOT FIST WAY) keeps showing up and exposing himself to customers and staff. Ronnie treats it like a big murder investigation and becomes very competitive with the overqualified actual cop assigned to catch the guy, Detective Harrison (Ray Liotta, COP LAND).

It’s a darkly funny concept ripe for comedy that plays even grimmer now, after subsequent years of high profile murders and other abuses committed by police, incel mass shooters, and vigilantes. Ronnie is casually obsessed with guns and wishes he could carry one on the job. He fixates on a woman he has nothing in common with (Anna Faris, MAY, as makeup counter clerk Brandi), fantasizes about being her protector, becomes possessive of her, also has no objection to having sex with her when she’s drunk and on pills and can barely walk.

He’s also an unrepentant racial profiler. Even though the flasher is described as white he tries to blame three different minorities (a Mexican mall employee whose name I couldn’t find in the credits, Aziz Ansari as another employee he calls “Saddam,” and in a montage he even considers his Asian security guard colleagues played by John and Matt Yuen, writing “Dick color?” next to a photo of them).

There are alot of laughs about the way Ronnie annoys the shit out of Detective Harrison, portrayed more like a standard movie cop. The joke is that this mall cop loser is wasting the time of professionals who do the actual job, though these days we might want more acknowledgment that he’s imitating the behavior of an already unsavory profession. I suppose the sign of that is when Harrison deservingly chews him out but calls him a homophobic slur. It’s also pretty reckless behavior when he pranks Ronnie by bringing him on a ride-along (like Liotta did for Kurt Russell in UNLAWFUL ENTRY) and then ditching him in a dangerous drug spot far from home.

In true January 6 fashion, Ronnie worships cops but as soon as they oppose what he’s doing he calls them pigs and beats them with a club. In the climax he sort of gains super strength and beats up a surprising number of them before they take him down for trespassing at the mall he’s now banned from.

My favorite directorial touch is the opening scene, using tense thriller music and handheld camera chasing behind the flasher as he runs through the parking lot. It feels like the shootout in HEAT or the opening bank robbery in THE DARK KNIGHT, but it’s a dude running around showing his dick to people. Beautiful use of the cinematic language. This is a well made movie, shot by Tim Orr (GEORGE WASHINGTON, RAISING VICTOR VARGAS) seeming more like a “real movie” than your average studio comedy. Production-values-wise it was a big leap for Hill after his low budget debut THE FOOT FIST WAY, pointing the way toward the HBO shows he’d spend most of his career making (Eastbound and Down, Vice Principals, The Righteous Gemstones). He’s actually only directed one movie since – 2018’s THE LEGACY OF A WHITETAIL DEER HUNTER.

I was surprised to see young Jesse Plemons (VARSITY BLUES) in a small but funny role as the one sort of normal security guard who’s apprehensive about the shit Ronnie wants him to do. I did remember that Michael Peña was in it, because this was the first time I knew he was funny. He plays a gold chain wearing guard who (SPOILER) totally kisses Ronnie’s ass but turns out to be using the job to rob the mall at night. At the end of the movie he’s fled to Mexico and sends a letter apologizing to Ronnie and professing brotherhood despite being on opposite sides of the law. I thought it was pretty funny to paint these two small-timers as a Johnny Utah/Bodhi or Dom/Brian type of pairing.

On this viewing it kept reminding me of a movie I really love, YOUNG ADULT. I think the similarity is that they have a character who seems to be on an arc toward learning a lesson and then they just choose not to. I thought of that in the touching-at-first scene where Ronnie’s alcoholic mom (Celia Weston, THE INVASION) makes a real effort to say the things a mom is supposed to say to be supportive, admits that he’s always had to take care of her instead of the other way around, and proudly tells him that she’s decided to make a change in her life. “I’m switching to beer. I can pound those all day and still keep my shit together.” It’s a funny joke and then kind of haunting when you think about earlier when Ronnie proudly announced he’d stopped taking his psychiatric medication. This family sure knows how to believe they’re making healthy decisions.

On second thought maybe I was subconsciously picking up on the more obvious connection to YOUNG ADULT: Patton Oswalt and Collette Wolf are in both movies. They know how to pick ’em.

One unavoidable distraction I had with OBSERVE AND REPORT when it came out is how much Ronnie seems like a Danny McBride character. I had seen THE FOOT FIST WAY and it’s the only time in my life I watched a movie and was so fascinated I immediately started it over and watched it a second time. So I was excited for Jody Hill joint #2 but I couldn’t stop picturing how McBride would say the same dialogue, even before he shows up in the movie as a drug dealer. That problem has only gotten worse as McBride has played Kenny Powers and other similar characters since.

But there’s a fundamental difference between how Ronnie comes across with Rogen playing him and how I imagine he would if it was McBride. When a McBride character reveals a sweetness or vulnerability he’s still such an asshole that it never really redeems him, it kind of seems like a sarcastic happy ending. But a Rogen character plays as innately big-hearted beneath whatever problems he has. Maybe in some ways that’s better – making Ronnie have a real likability and relatability maybe shows the danger of this type of toxicity a little better. A guy you know and like could have this side to him, and maybe there’s something more subversive about a character with this fucked up mentality playing on screen like the jolly protagonist of KNOCKED UP, etc. But I think the more despicable McBride version would make me laugh harder. Maybe I need my hand to be held more than I like to think.

On the other hand…

I didn’t entirely remember where this was going, and there’s a point where it kind of knocked my socks off, but then it switched things up and felt like kind of a (mall) cop out. In the end (ENDING SPOILERS) Ronnie has disgraced himself, gets beaten up by cops, somehow is allowed to return to the mall as a citizen and right in the middle of a tense moment when Nell (Wolf) has revealed feelings for him and we half expect him to be awful about it, the flasher shows up and wiggles his little dick at them.

I was happy to shed any concerns about the satirical point being made and enjoy the ridiculousness of this horrible character getting a surprise second chance at “redemption” by apprehending his arch-nemesis “the pervert” while his still-employed-there friends stand around doing nothing. It’s a really funny scene and his seemingly-ridiculous notion that the flasher was targeting Brandi turns out to be true as the guy sees her at the makeup counter, lights up and heads toward her. Though Brandi’s dramatic reaction to the original incident plays as performative and over-the-top, it does now seem reasonable to root for Ronnie to fly in here and tackle the guy.

And instead he fucking shoots him! A genuine pitch black, holy shit tonal whiplash moment. We were all having a good time but all the sudden this shit is serious. Everybody standing around in shock, not knowing what to do.

But then the flasher moves. Turns out he’s wounded but still alive, everybody acts like it’s okay now and Ronnie gets to bring him to the police station and show off his collar. I mean it’s still funny, I know the movie is not entirely sincere in celebrating this victory, but it lowered the movie in my estimation. The gut punch of the shooting was a real “I was not familiar with your game” moment for me and then 20 seconds later it’s “oh yeah, no, I was in fact familiar.”

Still, as you can tell by this review, it remains an interesting movie about important things that are unfortunately gonna stay relevant for the forseeable future. Definitely worth seeing/revisiting.